David French

Fake Conservative or once conservative that caught TDS and went full leftist on many issues.

Fake Conservative or once conservative that caught TDS and went full leftist on many issues. Technically, he's conservative on a few issues, but will take the lefts side despite being a "conservative" which is why he's so popular with the left. To live in a leftist world, you must be completely ineffectual; and French alienates conservatives and appeased leftists.

ℹ️ Info

~ Aristotle Sabouni
Created: 2022-12-21

America is being pulled apart - Time's Token Conservative, RINO, and TDS suffering #NeverTrump'er David French, wrote a piece that explained America is on the brink of self destruction. Instead of pointing out why, he spins it "both sides fault"... the progressives for the rending, and the conservativres for not shutting up and letting societies fabric be rended.
David French/Downplays Twitter Files - David French tries to downplay the Twitter Files, then is embarrassed by how idiot he was, and instead of an admission of a mistake and contrition, he deletes his own tweets and gets schooled for doing so. I don't mind mistakes and corrections if you own them and explain what you're doing to avoid them in the future. Covert historical revisionism is leftism.
David French/Flip-Flops - French is Flip Flops on key issues like support for Trump, opposition to Gay Marriage, or whatever displeases (or is in the way of advancement) in the leftist publications he is working for. I generally don't mind growth / revision of views. But his flip flops don't smell like that, they feel more like moral sacrifices for career/social advancement.

David Frenchism

Critics on the right argue that David French represents a brand of liberal conservativism that they blame for the decline in conservative influence in US politics.

The journalist Sohrab Ahmari coined the term 'David Frenchism' to describe this ideology ^[1]. Ahmari characterizes this brand of conservativism as being effectively center-right liberalism. That is, it is more concerned with promoting liberal values of tolerance than it is with protecting conservative values. He argues that David Frenchism replaces actual politics with sentimenatlism. Ahmari argues that Frenchism is ultimately a losing strategy because progressive liberals are able to use the tolerance that the ideology promotes against it. They do so by pushing the logic of tolerance to its limit, at which point it becomes intolerant of the views that it views as not sufficiently tolerant. Ahmari also argues that David Frenchism councils its adherents to avoid exercising political power, due to its libertarian leanings. He argues that this leaves a vacuum in the political structures that leave them open to the enemies of conservativism.

French's Defense David French wrote a piece in National Review where he argued against many of the points that Ahmari raised. He argues that Ahmari has created a strawman version of French, one who lacks awareness of the realities of politics^[2]

Rebut Ben Domenech writes in The Federalist that French's response does not deal with the situations that Ahmari raised and instead focused on a case in a courtroom that, due to the rules, demanded civility. He goes on to argue that Ahmari is basically correct and the Frenchism is not a constructive approach to conservative politics ^[3]